Shock and Sadness

I hadn't talked to her in over 10 years. I wouldn't have even known how to get in touch with her if I'd wanted to.

But I always wished I'd thanked her one more time for being a kind, warm, supportive, funny, talented individual -- someone who made my work better and my life a little easier in the summer of 1995.

I won't get that chance now. She was murdered.

Nancy Miller, a 59-year-old resident of Chesterfield, Mo., spent nearly 30 years at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch as a copy editor, St. Charles bureau chief, suburban editor, assistant metro editor and Lifestyle editor, before retiring last June.

When her friends and family couldn't reach her on Friday, they became worried. She was found slain, the headlines read, but police aren't saying how she died. They did take a suspect into custody late today and expect warrants to be issued soon. I'm sure we'll learn more in the days and weeks to come about who took her life and why.

Whatever the details, I'll remain in shock for a long time. Nancy was one of my metro editors when I served as summer intern for the paper's city desk. I had a serious self-confidence problem that summer, as in, I had none. I thought of myself as a small town girl from a mediocre communications program at a commuter school in the sticks who somehow conned the powers that be into an internship at this major metro daily -- and constantly waited for someone to figure out I didn't deserve to be there.

Then there was Nancy, with her gentle southern accent and maternal approach (although I don't think she ever had kids of her own), who took me under her wing, offered guidance and praise, and occasionally some quiet, good-natured teasing to lighten the mood. She sent me out on floods, fires, sweltering heat stories, lost dog tales. Among the 50-plus stories I wrote in those three months -- 13 of which were on the front page, thanks in part to Nancy's support and belief in me -- I wrote an in-depth story on whether local lifeguards had enough training and drove all over the county and beyond to create an enterprise piece about why post offices stopped displaying "Wanted" posters. And yes, I covered death.

Never in a million years would I have ever believed it, if I hadn't seen it right there on the Web site of the paper Nancy put her heart and soul into for three decades. Her colleagues had to cover her killing. They had to decide where to put it, on A1 or Metro. They had to call her relatives and pull her head shot out of the file.

I don't know what else to say, except she's just about the last person in the world who deserved any kind of mistreatment. Working with her has been a highlight of my career.